Captain America: Brave New World has undergone several rewrites and reshoots, and the movie didn’t even start out with that name when production began.
One particular actor that was left on the cutting room floor was Seth Rollins, who was supposed to be playing a member of the Serpent Society. Talking to ComicBook, director Julius Onah explains how plans changed and the casting of Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) eventually led to Rollins getting cut from the movie. Onah says:
“I love Seth, Seth’s incredible… But as we were evolving and we knew we had an additional photography period, just one that we did early on in the process that’s planned… We were trying to figure out, ‘Hey, who’s somebody that can bring a very specific kind of gravitas that works with this tone.’ And when Giancarlo became available, it was such a no brainer.”
It wasn’t clear how the Serpent Society was going to factor into the story, but the director did describe them, “You know, when you’re taking characters like Serpent Society from publishing, who, as you know, are individuals dressed up as snakes and have snake adjacent powers, you’re always iterating and trying to figure out the version that totally works best in a movie like this… as we evolved and iterated, Giancarlo just made sense. And what a blessing to have in this film.”
Though Rollins was removed from his big screen debut, some fans are hopeful that Marvel has something for him down the line—maybe even as someone who isn’t part of the secret snake organization.
Admittedly, with all the reports of reshoots and bad test audiences, a lot of people are worried about how Brave New World is going to turn out. I, for one, am hopeful that Anthony Mackie makes a successful debut as Captain America. I just hope we can see the sequel in two years, unlike Shang-Chi who had a successful run but has been missing from the screen since 2021.
Captain America: Brave New World comes to cinemas on Feb. 14.
